Just add water /

Self-driving cars, hoverboards, and AI that can create art, the future is catching up fast. Now you can add a Star Trek-style replicator to the list of science fiction fancies becoming an everyday reality. Cana is the startup responsible for cooking up the world’s first molecular beverage printer, where you can order up any drink of your choice using just the water from the tap.

Backed by the Production Board, a holding company that includes Alphabet among its investors, Cana has spent nearly three years and $30m building out its proprietary hardware platform and chemistry system.

It was established as a standalone business in February, and bought in former Nike product manager Matt Mahar as CEO, with the wider team featuring alumni from Anheuser-Busch InBev, Google and Apple.

The Production Board was founded by Dave Friedberg to solve the most fundamental problems that affect the planet, and the briefest of glances reveal the beverage industry is a big one. The key ingredient of most drinks is water (as much as 90%, with the rest flavouring); and according to Cana, producing a single bottle of wine requires more than 600 litres of water to grow the grapes, while it can take up to 300 litres of water to produce a half litre of soda. But the water impact of the beverage industry is just the start, beyond that there is the carbon footprint involved in shipping and creating the plastic used to package it – each year the manufacturing and distribution of food and beverage creates more than 400 billion plastic bottles. And that’s before factoring in the much-reported damage said plastic does to the environment.

Cana claims it will eliminate the need for more than 100 beverage containers per month for the typical American household. ‘Instead of making insignificant, incremental improvements to the beverage industry’s archaic systems, Cana accelerates the shift to clean, decentralised manufacturing and brings an incredibly fun product to your home,’ Cana chairman Bharat Vasan stated in a press release.

Down the hatch

As to how the machine works, according to CNET, the colour screen on the device brings each drink to life with a description and thematic video clip while it is made. A cartridge holds small amounts of the essential flavouring ingredients that are precisely blended with tap water, sugar, alcohol and carbonation inside the machine to create your selection. People can customise every beverage to their preferred levels of alcohol, caffeine, or sugar.

Cana machines can be pre-ordered for $499, and will cost $799 when launched. Unlike pod-based beverage systems, a single Cana One ingredient cartridge can create hundreds of different beverages and should last on average for a month without needing replacement. Used-up ingredient cartridges can be returned to Cana in prepaid packaging, and are replaced at no additional cost. These cartridges can be reused up to 12 times before being fully recycled.

The company makes money on the drinks themselves – sparkling water is 29 cents, iced tea is 79 cents, and a cocktail costs $2.99. To help sell these, it plans to roll out a $49 per month plan, which will include a number of beverages dispensed during the month, with extra drinks charged on a per-use basis.

The startup began taking reservations for the Cana One device in March, and while it expected to deliver its first shipments early 2023, this has been shifted back to the end of 2023 as a result of disrupted supply chains that have dogged most other industries. Still, what’s a few extra months for such fancifully futuristic tech?